Three groups offer to build Polish coal-fired power plant

Reuters Staff

2 Min Read

WARSAW (Reuters) - Three construction groups have submitted offers to build a 1,000-megawatt coal-fired unit at Poland’s Ostroleka power plant for state-run utilities Energa and Enea, Energa said in a statement on Thursday.

Energa revived the Ostroleka power plant project in 2016 in response to the Law and Justice (PiS) government’s wider plan to stick to coal as the basic source of energy in the longer term.

The bidders include China Power Engineering Consulting Group, which offered to build the unit for 4.85 billion zlotys ($1.38 billion), a consortium of GE Power and Alstom Power Systems, which proposed a 6.23 billion zlotys contract and a group of Polimex-Mostostal and Rafako, whose bid amounts to 9.59 billion.

Energa said the price will not be the only factor taken into account in selecting the final offer in the first quarter of 2018.

Energa and Enea plan to spend 4.8 billion zlotys on the new unit in northeast Poland, Energa said, less than the initial estimates of around 6 billion zlotys.

“We adjusted the investment value to market conditions,” Energa’s spokesman said without providing further details.

Energa and Enea do not rule out attracting financial investors and investment funds to help finance the project, but it is too early to say when it could take place.

Ostroleka, which is expected to be ready by 2023, will be the last coal-burning plant to be built in Poland, the energy minister said earlier this year.

Poland plans to reduce the share of coal in its energy mix to 50 percent by 2050 from around 80 percent currently.